Protector (Navy SEALS Romance Book 3) (4 page)

“
C
an
you take us in lower?” Jake asked through the comm, turning to look over his shoulder at Mike. Their fearless pilot nodded and banked around to circle back to the same spot, but barely skimming over the roiling water.

The team had been at it for three days, stopping only to refuel and get the required amount of sleep. Mike was their chief pilot but Tanner would switch off, just to keep the search going. There had been no sign of the surfer and his parents were beside themselves with grief. All of the team members had stared death in their face during their military careers, but they’d never experienced the feeling of knowing one of their own was out there, lost and possible injured. The uncertainty of it was almost worse than death.

“I’d like you to do another visual pass of that rock outcropping on the southern face,” Knox called through their headsets. “I’m getting satellite pokes of an object that’s too sharply defined to be a natural formation. Could be a sign.”

“Roger that, base leader. Chopper one, going in.” Mike took one more pass around the small island about twenty miles out to sea. They’d followed each satellite image and ocean current projection until it felt like they were circling in on themselves, but the search had not been called off, so they were still at it.

As they circled around again, close enough to the water that an occasional swell reached up towards the helicopter’s horizontal struts, all eyes were trained on the water below. With the mid-morning sun sliding just out of reflection range, they could watch the ocean without worrying about missing anything in the glare.

“Chief, we got something, forty-five degrees out at the previous coords,” Jake said, his voice absent of any emotion. This was a mission, and there was no time for excitement over false leads.

“Taking us in,” Mike confirmed, flipping his radio channel and calling back to headquarters. “Knox, calling in a possible sighting, going in for closer recon. We’ll let you know what we got after another look.”

“Roger, stay on it and send me the coords when you’re on top of it, and I’ll take a zoom on my end.”

They came in closer and spotted the object, a bright neon piece of debris. It was hard to make out any distinguishing features, as the flat piece was lodged among some large rocks and constantly moving in the waves.

“We got anything big enough to warrant an on-site search?” Mike called back as Jake and Tanner sighted it through their binoculars.

“I say it’s a go,” Jake offered before turning to Tanner and waiting for his assessment. Tanner continued to look at the object, then finally nodded grimly.

“Yeah. It’s hard to tell, but it definitely could be a surfboard. It’s worth a ground-level look. Jake, you’re suited. You taking this one?”

“Copy, if you’re on the winch.” Jake leaned over and began unfastening some dry gear in order to get ready to jump in. Mike called it in to Knox that they were putting a man in the water, and only seconds later there was a splash below the helicopter, barely audible over the sound of the rotors beating the air.

“Keep a visual on Jake,” Mike reminded Tanner. In any other line of work, and for any other team, that kind of order could lead to frustration and more than a few sarcastic replies, but they’d spent years working together, each knowing his role. Right now, Knox was lead on communication, but Mike called the shots in the air.

“Affirmative, chief,” Tanner replied, keeping his binoculars trained on the spot where his teammate had entered the water. He couldn’t see any sign that Jake had surfaced yet, but that didn’t mean anything...for now.

* * *

A
ngel stopped
his pacing long enough to look out the window of his mother’s room. Outside, a young couple emerged from the hospital’s main entrance, blinking when they stepped out of the shadow of the covered entrance and the Texas sun hit them full force. The young woman put a hand up to shield her eyes, but she stumbled slightly when she misstepped. The man put out his arm to steady her, and while Angel watched, the woman nearly crumpled. The man pulled her close, and too quickly Angel realized he was watching two people who’d obviously gotten horrible news.

He couldn’t tear his eyes away from their pain. Instead, his heart seemed to pull in on itself as he watched the man pull her into his arms, rocking her gently right there in the parking lot. He didn’t hear the door to the room open, so caught up in his fear for these two strangers.

“It never gets easier,” Madison said in a whisper, coming close to Angel and seeing what he was looking at. “I’ve done this job for years and you think you’re immune to suffering. You think you can just put on a uniform and suddenly turn into this detached robot that can be programmed to save a life without getting involved. And in some ways, you can… at least while you’re working. But then every face of every hurting person who came through the doors that day appears when you try to go to sleep. They stand around your bed at night and haunt you, making you wonder what you could have done differently or how you’ll ever find the strength to do your job tomorrow.”

“What happened to them?” Angel asked, nodding toward the couple.

“I don’t have any way of knowing, they’re not in my department. But it could be anything. A parent who didn’t make it, or worse, a child who didn’t make it. A bad diagnosis, like cancer maybe? Or just plain bad news, like finding out the baby they’ve been praying for doesn’t have a heart beat.”

“God Madison, how do you do it?” he whispered. “I’ve killed people… I killed them for a living, even. But I knew that every single bullet was aimed at someone who’d done bad things, and who would keep doing bad things if I didn’t stop him. But how do you do this?”

“Just like you do,” she answered, turning and smiling at him. “I know that no one else can do my job the way I can, or do it better. And I know that if I didn’t do it, the consequences would be so bad. So I get up each day and put on my uniform, and use my training… just like you.”

They turned back to the window in time to see the man bend down and scoop the woman up into his arms, carrying her to the car since she lacked the strength to move. She wound her arms around his neck and buried her face in his shoulder, neither of them caring that other visitors walking past them stared. Angel slipped his hand into Madison’s and gave her hand a squeeze.

“I came to tell you the good news,” she began slowly, not taking her eyes off the couple. “The CT scan showed no change in your mom’s brain, at least not the bad kind. Her swelling has gone down a little, actually. That means the issue is with the heart itself. They did an MRI and discovered bleeding around the heart itself, so there was damage during the accident. They’re prepping her for surgery to repair a small hole in the area between the left atrium and the left ventricle.”

“What? They’re cutting open her chest?” Angel roared, wrenching his hand away from hers and balling up his fists. “How the hell is this good news?”

Before Madison has a chance to respond, he started pacing the room again, only this time his movements were more like those of a caged, aggressive animal. He finally paused, looking around the room for anything that he could take out his anger on, and kicked the chair as hard as he could. Madison jumped when his boot connected with the chair leg, sending it careening into the wall so hard the window panes shook.

“Because if you’d use your brain and your training instead of your testosterone for once, you’d remember what I told you!” Madison shouted back. Angel blinked in surprise and Madison, surprised a little herself, lowered her voice to acceptable hospital limits. “I told you before, if her heart was not functioning because her brain wasn’t sending the signal, then we were in for one hell of a fight. If the heart wasn’t working properly because it was damaged, that was a whole other ball game. It’s a huge medical difference: we’re good at fixing hearts, but we kind of suck at fixing the brain.”

“So they can fix this? Or am I gonna be sucker punched by a whole new problem once they cut her open?” he demanded, only partly appeased and only slightly quieter.

“Angel,” Madison began, taking a step closer now that he was at least trying to see reason, “you’re smarter than this. I know you’ve had to be so strong and so brave for such a long time that you don’t know how to respond when the danger is closer to home.” She reached out and put a hand on his arm, surprising herself by the way her fingers trailed up his bicep. She shook off the thought that instantly grew inside her. “Process what I’m telling you. Your mom is in good hands, and they’re doing everything they can for her.”

“I know,” he finally said, letting out a breath that it felt like he’d been holding since the moment Manuela had called him with the news. “I just feel helpless, and I’m not used to it. I take charge! I take orders! I make things happen. Like right now, my team is out there searching for a missing kid...and I know they’re gonna find him because that’s what we do. We make things happen. We don’t sit around wondering what’s gonna happen, not while someone else does all the work. I need to be doing something to help her!”

“The only thing you can do to help her is be strong for her. This stuff right here--” Madison gestured around the empty room. “--this isn’t helping. I don’t mean the tantrum or the anger, I’m talking about the waiting. It’s great that you’ve come all this way to be here and to give your sister some relief, but this is all the easy part. The hard part comes later. Your mom has months of recovery ahead of her, if not years. And all of that… that only comes if she survives.”

“So what are you saying? I should just walk out of here and let some stranger hold my mom’s hand when she wakes up? Or hold her hand if she won’t be waking up?”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying, silly,” she answered with a supportive smile. “But stop beating yourself up, stop beating your head against the wall over a situation that is out of your hands. Pray for her if that gives you comfort, and keep a positive thought in your head until you have some proof that you should give up. And even then, don’t give up on her.”

Angel finally looked at Madison and returned her smile. “You always were the deep thinker, weren’t you?”

“I choose to believe I was more like the ‘smarter’ one in the pair,” she joked, avoiding his kind words and laughing. Angel caught her hand as she waved it to brush off his compliment. He held it tightly for a second while Madison waited, not even willing herself to breathe. He took her fingers and kissed them softly for a moment, his lips lingering on her hand.

“Angel… don’t. Don’t unless you mean it,” Madison cautioned him.

“And what if I do mean it? What if I know that we both had a lot of growing up to do, and a lot of fire in ourselves that we had to get under control before we could be trusted with someone else’s heart?”

“Yeah, but what if this is just hero syndrome? You’ve had to put up with it yourself. Are you changing your mind about me because I stand between your mom and the rest of her life?”

“I don’t know, to be totally honest,” Angel answered, his brown eyes turning fierce as he searched her apprehensive expression. “But I know this: I don’t want to see you walk away from me ever again. And I mean not even to go down the hall, let alone to get on a plane and make a life for yourself that doesn’t include me.”

“Angel… you can’t… you can’t mean this stuff. We broke up years ago, I just… I just saw you for the first time three days ago!” Madison started to pull her hand back but Angel pulled her closer.

“Please Madison, hear me out--”

“I can’t. I have to go.” She took her hand back one more time and fled from the room, leaving Angel to wonder where his words had even come from. Was Madison right? Was it nothing more than old feelings bubbling to the surface because she was trying to save his mother? Or was it a door, one that he thought he’d kept tightly shut for years, slowly opening because it had never meant to be closed in the first place?

“
T
alk to me
, ground team. What’s going on down there?” Tanner said, waiting for confirmation that Jake had connected with the object.

“Roger, bird. I’m almost within reach of the object. It looks like a surfboard from this distance, but I can’t determine age or condition from here. “ Jake kept swimming, keeping his movements even to avoid fighting against the current and tiring himself out.

He reached the board and inspected it for indications. “Call back, bird. I’m at the object, it’s definitely a surfboard and it looks somewhat freshly damaged. Can you read me the description of the missing surfer’s board?”

He waited while Tanner read off the details, the color, even some old markings. Jake confirmed each of the descriptors and made his assessment.

“Call it in, chief. This here’s our missing surfboard. Now we just gotta find the surfer who goes with it.”

“Gimme some good news, Jake. Look around the area, and be sure to check for low tide marks. See if the kid could have washed up at low tide and then scrambled for somewhere to hold onto.”

“Roger, I’m in the shallows already, approximately two meters of water. Check in with Knox and get me a low tide time.”

“Got it, low tide was at 0612, high tide will crest after 1400,” Mike answered. “That means you’re on your way to the deepest part of the day. The board was in two meters of water close to high tide, so we can expect a good bit of beach front around the rocks at low tide.”

“Copy that, I’m headed onto the rock face to look around. Are you calling in another bird to scan based on the board, or are we solo for a little while longer?”

“We’re good on fuel, so I’m gonna cut you loose and start circling. Tanner will take visual for the surfer, I’ll keep a visual of the island while spotting your coords.”

“Got it. Keep a good watch, guys.” Jake clicked off his radio and began the climb up the rocks, hoping against hope that there was a kid somewhere near this surfboard.

* * *

I
t felt
good to lay down in a real bed for a change, but Angel was far from sleeping. He kept playing it over and over in his mind, watching Madison’s horror-stricken face as she turned and ran out of the room. Was he so horrible that even talking to him could make her react that way?

He’d left shortly after, holding off only as long as it took his sister to get off work and come up to the hospital. He hadn’t seen Madison again the entire time, even though he could feel her lurking somewhere nearby.

Angel sighed, lifting his arms and sliding his hands beneath his head. He stared up at the ceiling, watching the dark shapes made by shadows from the moon’s glow through the window. This had been his childhood bedroom for as long as he could remember, and the last night he hadn’t been able to sleep in this room had been the night before he left for the military...the night Madison had told him she couldn’t marry a soldier.

He’d been one of the older guys in his new unit, having come at this later than most. Before he’d decide to enlist, he’d been a happy but busy paramedic. He had a college degree under his belt but still worked at the job that had put him through school, mostly because he felt this burning need to save people. Folks at the hospital laughed whenever they talked about Angel and Madison, how he brought ‘em in and she patched ‘em up. They were a team, an unstoppable life-saving force.

And then all of a sudden, they weren’t. They weren’t Angel and Madison anymore. They weren’t somebody’s joking idea of a dynamic duo. They were two separate people again, and it had broken something inside of him.

He didn’t think that feeling could get any worse, at least not until today. Madison had turned her back on him again, but this time she’d turned her back on the man he’d become instead of the one he’d been searching to be. It hurt even worse than the first time, and Angel would never have believed that was possible.

He stared up at the ceiling of his room, watching the shadows cast by car headlights as they bounced off the new objects that crowded the room: an exercise bike set up in front of a little television, a sewing table with her sewing machine still laid out, an ironing board propped in the corner. His mom hadn’t kept it as a shrine like some parents did when their kids grew up and moved out, and that was for the best. His line of work meant an excellent chance that he could have been any day of the week, and he knew from talking to others who’d been serving longer that moving on early was the best way to handle tragedy down the road.

Too bad you didn’t figure out how to move on after Madison
… Angel chastised himself.
There’s no point in this kind of thinking, so knock it the hell off
.

Knocking… He furrowed his brow at a light sound that pricked at his ears. Somewhere in the house, a soft brushing sound turned insistent. It repeated,sounding more and more hollow the louder it became.

Angel crept out of bed and pressed himself against the hallway, peering around each corner slowly as he approached the noise. Manuela was staying at the hospital so it couldn’t be her. Unless… unless his mother had...and Manuela was coming home to tell him.

He barreled for the door and threw it open, steeling himself for the bad news. But instead of his teary-eyed sister, Madison stood on the stoop, her fist poised to knock again.

“What are you doing here?” Angel demanded roughly. “Is it my mom?”

“What? Oh god, no! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to make you think… no, she’s fine. At least, she’s the same. I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking…” Her voice trailed off guiltily as the realized what her arrival had made Angel think.

“Oh good,” he breathed, relief surging through him before he remembered that it was really Madison standing there. “Well, then what do you want?”

She took a deep breath and held it for a long time, wracking her brain to remember all the words. She’d rehearsed them all through the rest of her shift, all during her dinner break, all during the ride over here. But now they were gone, flown right out of her mind like they’d never been there in the first place.

“I just want to say I’m sorry,” she finally replied, figuring it was as good a place to start as any.

“You’re gonna have to narrow it down a little,” he told her for the second time, but this time there was no pent-up rage in his voice.

“Shoot, I know. I’ve already apologized. It feels like all I do is apologize. But now I’m specifically sorry for turning my back on you today. It must have felt like a real slap in the face to put yourself out there, only to have me act like a jerk.” She ducked her head and looked up at him sorrowfully. “I really am sorry, it just caught me completely off guard and I didn’t know what to do.”

“And you drove all the way over here to tell me that?” Angel asked, watching her face intently. There was a vulnerability there that he hadn’t seen in a long time. It had been replaced by the crisis-hardened expression of a woman who saved lives every single day, who pulled people back from the brink of death when no one else would have thought they could be saved. It was an expression that he wore all throughout his active duty years, but it had been exchanged for something colder and more skeptical now that he was halfway retired.

“No,” Madison said, squaring her shoulders and standing up straight. “I came all the way over here to do this.”

She stepped closer and slowly brought her hands together behind Angel’s neck. The immediate sensation of his heated skin sent tingles up her arms, but that wasn’t her goal. Madison took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and found his lips with hers. The moment they connected in a kiss was every bit the flood of memories she’d thought it would be.

Angel resisted at first, still burning with the shame of her earlier rejection, but the warmth of her lips and the feel of her arms around him transported him to a whole other time, one when they had been happy and he had been loved. The way he’d cherished her then came back to him in a rush, and before he realized it, his arms went around her waist, pulling her closer to him. He held her against his chest as he gave in to her, deepening the kiss without even realizing it.

“Angel…” Madison breathed, finally breaking the kiss. “I’ve missed you so much. I didn’t even know how much until you were here again.”

“I know. But I won’t leave you again. I promise,” he said, holding her tighter and kissing her again. He lifted her off her feet and held her pressed against him, thrilling when she climbed higher and let her legs wrap around his hips. He stepped backwards into the house, kicking the door shut behind them.

Angel carried her through the darkened house, skipping over several other flat surfaces that would have done just fine for a quick physical tryst. Unless he was completely misreading the way Madison clung to him, the way her tongue dipped hungrily against his own, this was no hurried romp. He finally had her back in his arms, and he wasn’t going to rush a second of it.

He slowly moved down the hall, caressing the small of her back as she leaned down over him to kiss him deeply, her hair falling on either side of his face and wrapping him in her scent. The way she felt, the way she smelled, all of it came rushing back to him as though the past few years had never come between them.

Angel lowered her gently to the bed and carefully moved beside her, cradling her in his arms. In between the times of red hot rage he’d felt towards Madison and her rejection, he’d envisioned this moment right here. Imagining her in his arms again—and in his bed—had carried him through many long, frightening nights. He hated to admit it, even to himself, but there had been moments when he was certain he was staring death in the face, but a memory of Madison would come back to him and carry him through.

“Angel, I want you,” Madison said in a rush, barely breaking their kiss to tell him. “I’ve missed you more than I can even say.”

He wanted to answer her, but the words he needed weren’t there. Instead, he brushed her hair back and looked at her longingly, then kissed her again. His hand found the hem of her scrubs top and he rested it on the heated skin of her stomach. Reading her cues, he inched his hand higher until it came to rest on the swell of her breast. At his touch, she arched her back into his hand, needing to feel him on her.

Madison wasted no time tugging at the edge of Angel’s shirt, guiding it up his toned torso until he leaned away and let her slide it over her head. She went to work kissing his neck, making her way to his chest, breathing in the scent of him in a way that was like coming home.

Angel trailed his hand down Madison’s back, over her round ass, until he let his hand come to rest on her thigh. He pulled her leg up to wrap around his waist, trying to somehow get even closer to her. She could feel his rock hard length pressing between them, a sensation that flooded her with memories of nights they’d barely slept, unable to get enough of each other.

She wedged her hands between them to fumble with his jeans, unbuttoning them and slipping down the zipper until she felt the hot velvet-wrapped steel of him. It thrilled her, making the darkness around them all the more exciting. Angel moaned involuntarily as she held him, trailing her fingertips gently along his shaft until she wrapped her hand around him tightly.

I should stop this
, he told himself weakly, moaning again when she moved her hands back to his chest and cinched her leg around him tighter.
I won’t be able to tell her no if I keep going…but do I want to tell her no? I have to, if this doesn’t mean anything to her…

As if she could read his mind, Madison pushed Angel backwards until he was flat on his back. She shifted until she was on top of him, straddling him. She sat up long enough to slip her top off over her head then reached behind her to unhook her bra. Instinctively, he caught the spill of her freed breasts in both hands, caressing them gently.

“Madison… you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to prove anything to me,” he began, still unable to tear his hands away from her.

“I’m not doing this for you,” she teased, grinding her hips against Angel until his eyes rolled back in his head slightly. “I’m doing it for me.”

“I won’t use you, Madison. I’m not that guy. If this doesn’t mean something to you, I won’t help you make a mistake that you’ll regret.”

“I won’t regret it. I don’t regret anything we had. And I won’t regret anything we do next.”

“Anything?” he asked her pointedly, staring her down until she looked away. She leaned down to kiss him again, flattening herself against his chest. He hooked his thumbs in the drawstring of her matching scrub pants, pushing them down with her panties at the same time.

When they were both naked, they reveled in exploring each other, getting reacquainted. Angel reached between Madison’s legs and brushed his fingertips across her swollen nub, smiling against her lips when he felt her entire body shudder.

“Oh, you liked that, did you, baby?” he asked in a husky voice. “You’re gonna love this.”

He dipped a finger inside of her warm folds, crooking his finger until she writhed. It was Madison’s turn to moan as she ground against his hand, thrilling in the rush of sensation that built up from deep inside her. She responded by climbing her legs higher on his hip and lowering herself onto him, closing her eyes at the intense pleasure of feeling him fill her slowly.